Les Soliloques du Pauvre (Signed w/ ALS) – Bound with Huit Lithographies en Couleurs de Sunyer pour Les Soliloques du Pauvre de Jehan Rictus (1 of 8 Signed Suites)

[Paris]: Chez l'Auteur, 1897. 1st edition. No. 172 of 500 copies on vellum paper. Issued for subscribers, with two portraits by Théophile Steinlen. Signed by Jehan Rictus on the half-title page in 1921 for Marcel Quentin. There is also a laid-in letter from Rictus dated 1918 with wartime and literary content. A collection of poems on the plight of the poor. Written in the common language of the streets and cafes of Paris amid the widening social disparities of the Belle Époque at the close of the 19th century. ***Bound with Huit Lithographies en Couleurs de Sunyer pour Les Soliloques du Pauvre de Jehan Rictus. Eight colored lithographs by [Joaquim] Sunyer. No. 4 of just 8 signed suites on Japan paper. Each lithograph with remarque and pencil signature of Sunyer (1874-1956.) Important early work by the Catalan painter, created soon after his arrival in Paris as a young artist. Originally published separately in portfolio format by Pierre Duffau in 1897 and now quite scarce, especially in this small limitation. Uncommon thus bound together with the Soliloquies of the Poor. (The lithographs are interspersed throughout the poems.) 8vo. Approx. 9 x 6.5 inches (22.5 x 17 cm.) Half leather over marbled boards. Gilt-decorated spine and gilt top edge. Marbled endpapers. Original stiff felt covers bound in. Cover and frontispiece portraits of Rictus by Steinlen. 169, (5) pp., + the Sunyer lithographs and their limitation page. The laid-in, handwritten letter is dated 27 February 1918 and addressed to an unnamed friend. Rictus discusses the war, the trench journal Le Diable au Cor, and the importance of writers and soldier-poets expressing themselves "en langue populair parlee" (as Rictus himself did in the Soliloquies.) See images for both sides of the original letter. VG overall. Sound and securely bound. Moderate wear with sunning at the spine, as shown. Closed tear (1.5 inches) at the bottom of the half-title. Moderate age-toning internally. Sunyer lithographs are clean and unmarked. A unique copy of the principal work by Jehan Rictus (pseudonym of Gabriel Randon, 1867-1933.) With his signature, the original autograph letter, and a desirable state of the signed Sunyer lithographs. (The total edition of the lithographs was 200 suites, all but 10 of them issued unsigned.)